Some species, like dolphins, have advanced echolocation capabilities, suggesting the ability to form crisp images from ultrasound reflection patterns.
Being that their auditory cortex is so much larger than ours, and that they use it primarily for understanding the world around them, the true way to share our worlds may be through translation of videos and 3D CAD models into auditory form.
To do that, we could arrange tiny underwater ultrasound speakers ("Auxels") into a large fine-resolution sheet or film, that produces sounds emanating from them following the clicks of a simulated sound emitter on a Dolphin's head, to simulate it's own click (but much lower amplitude than would be required to produce reflection), to trick the brain into expecting for a reflection.
The dolphin's brain may then interpret the simulated click as its own "flashlight", and expect for reflections, which would come after the precise time expected based on the speed of sound under water, but with simulated delays from each Auxel, simulating a 3D surface.
The 3D surface thus simulated, may be perceived by a dolphin as a thing or an immersive environment. So, we can simulate 3D objects. We could even try to simulate letters, and see what resolution can a dolphin capture. Can it understand complex CAD drawings?
More importantly, if dolphins are able to produce directional sounds, we could also use the Auxels as microphones, and implement an auditory touch screen, that dolpins could interact with much more naturally.
And, who knows what they could do then.-- Mindey, May 03 2019 scitation.org https://asa.scitati...i/10.1121/1.3676694"Clicks and burst-pulse signals were highly directional" [Mindey, May 03 2019] seaworld.org https://seaworld.or...phin/communication/"Bottlenose dolphins produce directional, broadband clicks in sequence. Each click lasts about 50 to 128 microseconds. Peak frequencies of echolocation clicks are about 40 to 130 kHz." [Mindey, May 03 2019] How would the touchscreen work? Can dolphins project images of sound for it to pick up?-- notexactly, May 03 2019 If dolphins really capable of directional clicking (or at least, with the distribution maximum at a given point), we should be able to to pick that up. Similar to how a single finger produces a lot of touches, but we take the distribution maximum or mean that, to resolve to a single pixel.
With that, different modulation patterns chosen by a dolphin to produce to the same direction may have different operation codes. E.g., zoom-in, zoom-out, etc., just like a mouse pointer.-- Mindey, May 03 2019 But are they capable of that? I would think they'd just send out an omnidirectional pulse, and listen to what directions the echo comes back from.-- notexactly, May 03 2019 Apparently yes, they are. See links [scitation.org], [seaworld.org]. So, considering that they can do it sufficiently granularly, one could imagine them shooting coordinates at the screen.-- Mindey, May 03 2019 Alright then. Good to know.-- notexactly, May 03 2019 Exactly! :)-- Mindey, May 03 2019 But a visual screen is often used to render 2D representations of 3D objects. Could this auditory screen similarly generate 2D representations of 3D objects?
Also a visual screen can display moving or still images. Could this device use tone generators to create static sound-fields?-- pocmloc, May 03 2019 Could you create a VR headset for a dolphin that would receive the clicks and send back clicks at a time delay to simulate objects at certain distances?-- marklar, May 03 2019 random, halfbakery